Consistent Life Action Alert

From Consistent Life (in a roundabout way: I’m the one working on this project for them):

The Center for Reproductive Rights is beginning a campaign to end the Hyde Amendment and bring back Federal funding of abortion. One of their tactics is a series of videos in which supporters question why tax dollars can’t be spent on abortion but can be spent on things they disagree with, such as war.

This would be a great chance for Consistent Life to counter with a video pointing out all the different ways in which the destruction of life is promoted by our tax dollars, and emphasizing that we can and should oppose all of them.

To contribute, record a video of no more than 30 seconds in which you discuss what life-destroying programs you don’t want your tax dollars spent on, and/or what life-affirming programs you would like them spent on instead. Preferred format is .mov, although .avi is also acceptable. Then, contact video@consistent-life.org for uploading instructions.

3 thoughts on “Consistent Life Action Alert”

I can’t believe that someone really thinks that this is a good strategy for the pro-choicers. (Actually, given A. Marcotte’s participation it’s easier to understand.) Not only is there the objection that many pro-lifers are opposed to the very same things mentioned in the video – but there is a potentially more devastating objection: while the narrator called the Hyde amendment hypocritical, it’s actually the pro-choice activists’ objections which are hypocritical.

Did the opponents of the war object when Democratic politicians fought over appropriations for the Iraq war? Did those concerned with the welfare of immigrants object when Obama defunded the building of the border fence? Did Marcotte object when state department officials recommended dropping Xe as their main private security contractor?

The video tries to suggest that there is something anomalous about efforts to prevent public funding of abortion, but that is asinine. Every issue they mentioned has groups which are trying to end funding- and it’s reasonable to assume that the people in the video approve a these groups and their efforts.

It’d be hypocritical to suggest that efforts to prevent funding of abortion are objectionable UNLESS one is willing to consider efforts to prevent funding of things one personally finds abhorrent to be equally objectionable. Some efforts are successful where others aren’t, but that’s politics.

What the pro-choice makers of the video are really objecting to is what they perceive to be a long record of successes by the pro-life movement when it comes to spending tax dollars on abortion. Of course one can only have such a perception if one lives in a hermetically sealed bubble which blocks out every voice which would not reinforce one’s view of the world.

Opposition to public funding isn’t a pro-life position; it is common to most pro-choicers! The efforts to prohibit funding have such a long history of success because they ‘enjoy so much popular support. Every poll on the topic shows widespread opposition to funding far beyond the limits of the pro-life community.

Giving someone a choice isn’t the same as paying for what they want. Advocating public funding for abortion is not, therefore, a matter of being pro-choice but of being literally ‘pro-abortion’. Getting rid of the Hyde amendment isn’t a goal of ‘the center’ for reproductive rights (more like the radical left).